First night we moved into our new digs on downtown's east side, I was hit up for spare change five times during the walk to the gym — a walk that's all of 157 feet. With each request came the same shrugging response: Sorry, got nothing. Which was true. Then, it's also hard to panhandle the pocket-less.

Make no mistake, panhandlers aren't going anywhere, no matter how hard the city wishes it could ticket and detain beggars into oblivion. As much as this might tick off downtown residents sick of being hassled, or drivers tired of getting hit up for cash from the curb, asking for spare change isn't illegal.

Complain all you want. Leave all the nasty comments you can muster. Shout as loud as you can into the nearest open microphone. Won't make any difference.

Because asking for "gas money" is protected by the First Amendment.

That's what the Supreme Court has said repeatedly, most recently in 2015, in a case titled Reed v. Town of Gilbert. It started as a tussle over religious signs and ended with the justices saying cities can't regulate what people can say in public because, ya know, free speech.

"The ordinance has not been repealed, but we have to be very careful in our enforcement of it," City Attorney Larry Casto told me last week, a few hours before the council received a memo about how the ordinance could — and wouldn't — be enforced in the future.

"Case law is pretty clear," he said. "You can't just isolate a certain activity — in this case, an activity defined by the courts as protected by free speech — and singularly target that activity."

That's pretty much what Casto says he told the council behind closed doors on Sept. 20, during an executive session where the only thing on the agenda was "Legal issues related to Panhandling." So the law's still on the books. We're just ignoring it.

City Council members don't want to hear this. They've always looked at panhandlers as a menace. Go back to 2003, when Mayor Laura Miller tried to chase off panhandlers she said were a "gigantic public safety hazard," especially roadside beggars "knocking on people's windows, making people afraid." Her council passed an ordinance that made it illegal for people to "ask, beg, solicit, or plead [for] contributions, alms, charity, or gifts of items of value for oneself or another person."

"We couldn't make the ban citywide because courts have concluded that soliciting money is protected by the First Amendment, so the government must have a compelling reason to infringe on such a basic right."

The council agrees something needs to be done — maybe a temp-job program, "giving meters" — but can't agree on the what or the how or the how-much. So, instead, nothing. Except more griping. The Dallas Way.

Elected officials also like to complain that the panhandling ordinance isn't being enforced. But that's not true: That 2016 National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty look at criminalizing homelessness put Dallas in its "Hall of Shame" for "aggressively" enforcing its panhandling ban. Said the study, Dallas issued some 2,000 citations for panhandling in 2015 alone — most to people who could not pay them and wound up with stains on their records.

"Any decision not to enforce ordinances that criminalize homelessness is really important and certainly laudable," said Kali Cohn, a Dallas-based ACLU of Texas staff attorney.

She learned about the ease-up from the WFAA story and was heartened by the city's decision. How very holiday-season of the city.

"It's an important step," Cohn said. But she noted that the ACLU's had its eyes on the city for some time. Dallas hasn't been sued. Not yet.